Before JD Vance entered the political arena, the Ohio Republican was known to much of the public as an author. In fact, his first book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” was a great success that helped catapult Vance into a brief career in the Senate.

About a decade after his bestseller reached shelves, the vice president’s second book is apparently on the way. The Associated Press reported:

Vice President JD Vance has a new book coming out that will explore his religious faith and his conversion to Catholicism as an adult.

‘Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith’ comes out June 16, the HarperCollins Publishers imprint Harper told The Associated Press on Tuesday. … ‘The story of how I regained my faith, of course, only happened because I had lost it to begin with,’ Vance, 41, said in a statement.

The good news for the vice president is that his book has already garnered some attention. The bad news is that it’s probably not the kind of attention he was looking for.

The Bulwark’s Joe Perticone, for example, noticed that the cover of “Communion” shows a United Methodist church, which isn’t ideal given that Vance’s book is about his embrace of Catholicism.

Complicating matters is the question of the Ohio Republican’s schedule. Plenty of vice presidents have written books during their tenure — this is especially true of modern vice presidents gearing up for national campaigns of their own — but Vance will be the first to do so after just one year in office. He claims he began working on the text years ago, but the idea that he managed to finish writing a book during his first year as a national officeholder suggests Vance had a remarkable amount of free time in 2025.

But perhaps most important, Vance will soon have a book about his embrace of Catholicism in the midst of clashes with Catholic leaders.

As The New York Times noted, his newfound faith “has come with complications, particularly as he has at times justified the Trump White House’s aggressive deportation campaign with his own interpretation of Catholic doctrine. His views prompted a strong denunciation from leaders in the Vatican and are in opposition to the priorities set by the most high-profile American Catholic, Pope Leo XIV.”

What’s more, let’s not forget that when Vance was reminded last year that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned some of some of the administration’s policies related to immigrant enforcement, the vice president accused his church of having corrupt motives.

“I think that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns? Or are they actually worried about their bottom line?” Vance told CBS News early last year.

John Carr, the former head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ office on social justice efforts, told The Washington Post soon after that Vance’s criticisms “showed an unprecedented lack of respect for the work of the Catholic community, lack of restraint in promoting false and outrageous claims that the Church does this for the money and promotes human trafficking, and a lack of knowledge of Catholic teaching and ministry with refugees.”

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York later said that Vance privately apologized to him. Asked about this, the vice president hedged, saying he didn’t remember exactly what he told Dolan.

Vance will no doubt be doing plenty of promotional interviews when his second book comes out. He should probably start preparing now for some awkward questions about his clashes with his church.

Disclosure: Vance’s publisher, HarperCollins, also published both of my books.

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